Facility Chiller Maintenance Improved by Thermal Imaging

A new applications report from FLIR Systems details how Integral UK, one of the largest independent providers of property maintenance services in the UK, has used FLIR thermal imaging technology to reduce facility chiller downtime thereby reducing inconvenience and ongoing maintenance costs to their clients.

Traditional methods for refrigerant gas leak detection promote the use of sniffers. Unfortunately, because of the way many facility chillers are designed, accessibility is always a problem and on average maintenance engineers are only able to test c.60% of the installation depending on the chiller design and the pipe runs. With the FLIR GF304 thermal imaging camera, access is improved allowing for accurate diagnostics within those areas which are normally difficult to access in normal operations. The visual output of the GF304 thermal imaging camera, allows users to clearly see any exit point of the gas, automatically supplying evidence based reports on gas escapes that remain undetectable from any other source.

<span style="\\&quot;line-height:" 1.6em;\\"="">Integral UK report that the FLIR GF304 is very versatile and how they are using it both for finding refrigerant gas leaks and for high voltage, low voltage, mechanical and general building inspections. Further by using the FLIR GF304 as a preventative maintenance tool – Integral has been able to identify potential refrigerant gas escapes before they develop and apply remedial actions. In this way, Integral has been able to improve the reliability of facility chillers and extend the life cycle of a critical building asset.